TMC leader gave assurance justice will be delivered: Agitating SSC job aspirants

Protesting School Service Commission (SSC) job aspirants in West Bengal on Friday said their meeting with TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee was ”fruitful”, and that the senior leader of the ruling party assured justice would be delivered.

The protesters have been staging demonstrations for over 500 days at Mayo Road in the metropolis, alleging irregularities in SSC recruitments.

Banerjee met them at his office in Camac Street in the presence of Education Minister Bratya Basu and Trinamool Congress state general secretary Kunal Ghosh.

”The meeting was held in a very cordial atmosphere. Abhishek Banerjee heard us patiently and has assured us that those who featured on the merit list of 2016 SLST would get jobs,” said Shahidullah, who led the group of protesters.

The next meeting will be held on August 8 at Bikash Bhawan, the headquarters of the state’s Education Department, where the SSC chairman would also be present.

Ghosh said the party is sympathetic towards the cause of the agitators.

“These interactions and meetings would continue to find a way out of this problem,” he said.

Meanwhile, even as the meeting was underway, a group of Teacher Eligibility Test (TET) candidates squatted outside Banerjee’s office, demanding similar dialogue with their representatives.

”We would also want a meeting with Abhishek Banerjee. For the last four years, we have been agitating over irregularities in recruitments,” one of the protesters said.

The CBI, as directed by the Calcutta High Court, is probing alleged anomalies in recruitment of Group-C and Group-D staff, as well as teachers in government-sponsored and aided schools on the recommendation of the West Bengal School Service Commission.

The Enforcement Directorate had recently arrested Partha Chatterjee, who was the education minister when the alleged irregularities took place.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had on Thursday relieved Chatterjee of his duties as minister in charge of several heavyweight portfolios, including commerce and industry.

He was also suspended from the TMC and removed from all party posts.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)